In one of many highest profile offers introduced at Sequence Mania, European TV large Beta Movie has boarded crime collection “Cecilie Mars,” created and helmed by Christoffer Boe (“Warrior,” “Face to Face”), rated one in every of Denmark’s greatest administrators, and produced by Karoline Leth (“DNA,”“The Dreamer – Turning into Karen Blixen”) for double Oscar winner Zentropa Entertainments(“In a Higher World,” “One other Drink”).
Beta Movie has secured worldwide distribution rights to the collection which might be introduced by Boe and Leth at Sequence Mania’s Co-Professional Pitching Classes on March 25 in Lille’s Grand Palais Grand Théâtre, its greatest screening venue which continues to be habitually packed for the Classes.
“Cecilie Mars” charges as one of many Classes’ greatest 2025 buzz titles. Described by Beta Movie as a “contemporary and twisted tackle the thriller style,” the six-part collection activates Cecilie Mars, a pushed and mannequin new police commissioner who’s secretly consumed by a previous trauma. When a case hits too near residence – one of many women on her self-defence crew is raped – Mars crosses the road into vigilantism.
Blackmailed by a shadowy determine, Lazarus, she’s compelled by Lazarus to punish different rapists who haven’t been dropped at justice. Trapped in a lethal recreation of cat and mouse, blurring the strains between justice and revenge, Cecilie battles to find the id of Lazarus as her colleagues come ever nearer to uncovering her.
“‘Cecilie Mars’ is my likelihood to shake up the thriller style by diving headfirst into an unseen facet of Copenhagen – one stuffed with shadowy corners, hidden tales, and mysteries lurking simply beneath the sunny floor,” stated Boe.
“Cecilie Mars” marks Zentropa’s subsequent collection after Lars Von Trier’s “The Kingdom: Exodus,” Dunja Gry Jensen’s “The Dreamer – Turning into Karen Blixen” and Thomas Vinterberg’s “Households Like Ours,” which world premiered at Venice alongside collection by Alfonso Cuarón, Joe Wright and Rodrigo Sorogoyen. It brings substantial IP to the desk, the six episodes being based mostly on the primary e book, “Darkness Calls,” of the Danish trilogy “Cecilie Mars by Michael Katz Krefeld, Additional seasons are deliberate based mostly on the remaining two books of the worldwide success story, “Beast within the Night time” and !Daybreak of the Executioners.”
“I used to be immediately captivated by the principle character Cecilie Mars once I learn the e book. She is certainly wild! And she or he is a real hero. A hero, who faces insufferable issues which can be almost breaking her, all of the whereas she is combating to uphold the stability of justice in a system that generally appears to guard the felony greater than it does the sufferer,” stated Leth.
“Karoline gave me the e book at one in every of our first conferences, and after studying it, I knew this was a undertaking we needed to board,” famous Beta Movie’s Anais de Neergard. “‘Cecilie Mars’ is a charming story of a feminine police inspector who continually blurs the strains between proper and improper, that’s not like what I’ve seen earlier than. We’re proud to be co-producers of ‘Cecilie Mars’ and really excited to deliver this one in every of variety Danish crime collection directed by Mr. Boe to the worldwide market,” she added.
Krefeld’s books about police inspector Cecilie Mars have bought greater than 300.000 copies in Denmark and are bought to Germany, Finland, Holland, Poland, France, Spain, Italy, UK; most not too long ago Cecilie Mars launched on Amazon streaming within the U.S.
Within the construct as much as Sequence Mania, Selection sat down with Boe and Leth and requested what marks “Cecilie Mars” aside.
I believe Ampere Evaluation will verify later this Tuesday that 31% of European scripted commissions, H2 2024 have been crime thrillers. So what marks “Cecilie Mars” aside?
Christoffer Boe: Our most important character – Cecilie Mars, and he or she actually carries your complete collection. She’s very fascinating, a extremely charismatic character able to being very uncooked and brutal, but in addition humorous and endearing. What actually makes her stand out is that her superpower is principally her empathy. She understands and feels for the victims. She feels with the sufferer in such a powerful approach that there’s no stopping her when she feels a improper has been executed to a younger lady. That turns into very comprehensible and identifiable and offers her an amazing quantity of issues, which as a viewer is fantastic to look at.
“Cecilie Mars” additionally flips the conventional construction of the crime style the place it’s the felony which will get profiled. Cecilie’s understands and feels for the victims. Additionally, she’s an investigator who comes beneath rising investigation, and a detective who does improper….
Boe: Probably the most fascinating issues about TV collection is how they’re able to make the character king. That’s as a result of TV collection actually examine their characters – and we as an viewers need to see them in all their complexities and tough decisions. Ideally, the characters are positioned in conditions the place nothing is straightforward or clearly the correct selection – some issues are massively improper, however there isn’t a simple approach approach out. Cecilie Mars finally ends up, although a cop herself, doing one thing which is illegitimate. She now has not solely to cope with a blackmailer – but in addition lead an investigation the place she herself is the perpetrator! All these layerings are quite simple in some ways, nevertheless it creates a storyline that actually invests you with Cecilie and her dilemmas and comes off as one thing very new and contemporary for a feminine lead.
What viewers are you focusing on?
Karoline Leth: My father was a documentary filmmaker, a really well-known in Denmark. Jorgen Leth. He did movies for a really small viewers. I’m the alternative. I need this present to return out in every single place for as many thousands and thousands of individuals as potential.
And by way of gross sales, would you be trying to window, mix streaming companies and broadcasters?
Leth: Actually, streamers need to air in some territories however don’t take the entire world anymore. That’s why Beta Movie has joined us. Additionally, I might be working with a colleague, Kasper Dissing, a producer on Thomas Vinterberg’s “One other Spherical” and “Households Like Ours,”who’s going to be my wingman on all of the financing as a result of it’s complicated.
I bear in mind interviewing you, Christoffer, again in 2018 when there was a way of revolution with lots of exhibits. You talked about “Warrior’s” use of shallow focus. What is going to you deliver to the “Cecilie Mars” by way of a capturing model, tapping into the arsenal of cinema?
Boe: “Cecilie Mars” is so character-centric. She’s every little thing to this present so I’m making use of a number of the extra conventional old fashioned kinds capturing with previous lenses. I’m very in love with Joseph Petzval, whose final century photographic portrait lenses that are actually being remodeled into movie lenses. They’ve a really fascinating focus plan the place the sharpness shouldn’t be in your complete area of the picture, nevertheless it’s very centered.
And different stylistic results?
Boe: That mixed with fashionable lighting, a really eccentric electrical, fashionable, music rating, you get the sense of getting this in-camera film capturing model, however utilizing all the results that we have now now in our toolboxes. I believe we are able to create one thing that has this sensibility, this tactile really feel. Proper now lots of TV collection, due to lighting and grading, have a really plastic really feel. I believe we are able to positively do one thing that may be very industrial, very pushed by the character, has this vitality of the storytelling, however simply has this fascinating combine of contemporary and old fashioned cinema.
Leth: The model will make the collection really feel extra genuine, as if we’re there with the characters.
Whenever you speak about crime dramas, lots of people consider a procedural. That is extra a thriller, thriller.
Boe: It’s a thriller in that the principle character all of the sudden finds herself because the suspect. All of the sudden, all people is about to get her. Cecilie Mars makes a mistake, anyone blackmails her and now she the goal. Her personal colleagues are attempting to catch her! So it’s actually, in that sense, a extremely traditional thriller the place the principle character is on the run.
Karoline, might you place “Cecilie Mars” within the context of Zentropa’s burgeoning TV output?
Leth: I joined Zentropa in 2019 to spice up its TV manufacturing. We’ve executed “The Dreamer – Turning into Karen Blixen” for Viaplay and, after all, “Households Like Ours” with Studiocanal, Canal+ and TV2. Once we do collection, we’re doing precisely what we do after we make movies. We’re making the most effective story with the most effective creators behind it. Zentropa is about creating an surroundings the place creatives can create with giant creative ambitions.
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